


Adrift

by thecagedthestral



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Canon Compliant, Deaf Character, Deaf Din Djarin, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, HOH character, Hurt No Comfort, Post Season 2 Finale, or at least implied, sorry Din :(
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:07:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28903887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecagedthestral/pseuds/thecagedthestral
Summary: This feeling was heavier to bear than any armor Din had ever worn.
Relationships: Din Djarin & Cara Dune, Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda
Comments: 23
Kudos: 90





	Adrift

**Author's Note:**

> A continuation of Chapter 16, exploring Din's emotional state after handing Grogu over to Luke. I have some ideas floating around in my head for a potential continuation of this fic in a multi-chapter series, but for now it's just 3k words of all-hurt-no-comfort self-indulgence. 
> 
> It's sort of implied that Din is deaf/hoh here, so I'm tagging it although it isn't stated explicitly. I didn't do the appropriate amount of research to really make it a significant thing here, but if I do continue the idea in a multi-chapter, I will absolutely put more time into developing that. I'm hearing and take full responsibility for any mistakes I may have made, and will correct anything that I may have missed before posting.
> 
> This is the first real fic I've ever posted on ao3, and I hope people enjoy it! I definitely struggled with some of the dialogue in this piece, but hopefully it turned out alright enough :) Thank you for reading!

It wasn’t unusual for Din’s ears to be ringing. But this time it was a kind of ringing that had him rooted to the spot, a rigid pillar of hollow beskar. His soul had escaped through the hole at the top, a missing piece bare of the pure metal and open instead to weak trembling flesh, uncovered misty eyes, a gaping void of vulnerability.

And he had been the one to take the cork out.

Din stared down the forbidding grey corridor, expanding in front of him in mocking emptiness. It was the only thing he could see, and it felt cruelly appropriate – a metallic and hollow reflection of himself as his vision narrowed in a black haze. He floated adrift as the shadows around the edges of his eyes pulsed in and out in time with the static in his ears. Some distant, childish part of him whined for the lift doors to open and give back his family again.

The lift remained closed.

A cold weight seemed to be pulling at Din’s entire being, heavier than any armor he had ever worn. The Jedi’s lips had been moving as he picked up the child, but Din hadn’t heard a word that left the man’s mouth. All he’d felt was the lingering pressure of the child’s hand where it had pressed delicately against the skin of his cheek, the gesture an agonizing paradox of cruel comfort. Din swallowed hard at the memory, chest and throat and eyes heating up as his breath came out sharp and fast, threatening to drag his consciousness even further from the present. He did not allow himself to gasp a sound, the well-practiced habit of concealing panic perfectly suited to protecting him even now.

Din used to dream of blood-red robes and cold, unfeeling metal, a blinding light breaking above him as the whine of a weapon trained on him overwhelmed his senses. The haze was always tainted with the despair of loss, figures he’d never touch again forever dancing facelessly on the edge of his perception. But after the child, the dream became muted, morphing instead into glimpses of green skin and wide eyes and the soft and safe glow of unpainted beskar. In his sleep, there was nothing to stop him from feeling content, from finally feeling found.

But in the waking world, he had always been careful to keep that complacency at arm’s length, to make clear the delineation that would one day separate them. For how many more times had he dreamt of this? Of a single blaster shot ringing through the air, and an undeniable knowledge that he could do nothing to change the outcome; of roiling waves and teeth closing on a petrified face in a fragile pram, Din’s own voice sinking beneath the waves with him; of glaring white armor and a heartbreaking cry of distress.

Of a pair of hands reaching to pick the child up, and tiny fingers grabbing back willingly. Of himself, left alone with an achingly hollow space in arms held empty.

The lift door was still closed. The nightmare had finally made itself real. And despite all his careful avoidance of the attachment he’d allowed himself to form, all the meticulous compartmentalization and stubborn self-reminders of their inevitable end, Din had not been able to prepare himself for this. He had allowed himself to grow fond, and, worse, he had allowed himself to love. He had come to think of the child as _his_.

The realization hit Din like a blaster bolt to the chestplate at point-blank range, knocking the breath out of him as the weight in his limbs only doubled down, threatening to pull him to the floor as he held himself stiffly upright in adamant refusal. He was holding himself together as if he was pieces of beskar with no body underneath to support them, and the ringing in his ears grew so loud that they threatened to engulf his senses entirely. He had given his permission, and this was the consequence.

Dimly he became aware of a pressure on his arm, a dull tether to the outside world pressing insistently into his elbow. Din turned his head and looked down, finding a familiar gloved hand pinching the fabric of his arm; he followed the arm up to the figure of Cara Dune, her face turned away from him and eyes averted as she spoke. Din watched her lips move, faint sounds buffeting his eardrums through the static in fuzzy impressions of words. He became aware again of the air on his bare face, and sluggishly pulled himself from her grasp as he reached down to pick up the helmet discarded on the floor. Without turning back, he walked numbly away from her and towards the blast doors, fumbling at the control panel as he reached it until the battered doors closed behind him with a quiet shift into shadow.

Din only made it one step along the wall before he slid against it, crumpling to the floor with a soundless sob.

_______

Cara stared at her friend’s motionless form as the Slave’s engines rumbled to life. Din’s hand was clenched tightly where it rested on top of his knee, and his visor was pointed towards the opposite wall, fixed and rigid. If it weren’t for his fingers slowly twisting a small metal ball in his right hand, Cara would have mistaken the Mandalorian for a beskar statue. The man barely seemed to breathe.

It had taken some time to sort out the light cruiser situation and return to Fett’s ship. If Cara was to be optimistic, she’d have said that the other Mandalorians were reluctant to let Din leave.

But if she was realistic about it, Kryze had been ready to fight Din then and there. It had only been through some… aggressive negotiations that Cara had convinced the woman to back off. Kryze had kept a sour expression on her face throughout the entire ordeal as she agreed to maintain captaincy of the Imperial light cruiser, and as Cara forcibly exchanged contact information with her. It wouldn’t surprise Cara if the ambitious Mandalorian used it to send her own aggressive negotiation after them for the Darksaber soon – she had a sneaking suspicion that Kryze would be keen to take advantage of a vulnerability.

After the levels of aggression on the bridge had returned to a more tolerable level, Cara had made her way back to the blast doors. She had hesitated in front of them, her desire to respect Din’s space and boundaries warring with her concern for him, which had only been increasing by the second. Finally, after a quick glance confirming everyone else on the bridge was turned away or occupied, she’d opened the doors, stepped through, and closed them again behind her.

When she looked up, the sight of her friend hunched on the floor had been there to greet her, his head bowed so low that she could only just make out the curls of brown hair peeking over the edge of his cloak. He looked smaller than she had ever seen him, even concussed and nearly dying in her arms back in that cantina on Nevarro. It wasn’t the first time in her life that Cara hadn’t known what to do, but looking at him alone in that empty corridor made a sorrowful part of her wonder if there was anything she could really offer that would replace what he had just lost.

“Hey,” she had said softly, taking a small step towards him as she diverted her gaze back to the nearby wall. Din had given no response, nothing of him even moving save for the slight rise and fall of his shoulders as she continued. “Fennec commed Fett, he’s on his way to pick us up. We’ll be heading to the docking bay soon.”

She’d taken another step forward, this time diagonally so that she would appear in his peripheral vision. Out of the corner of her eye, she’d seen him shift his head away, a glimpse of the skin on his temple disappearing as he hunched his shoulders, lifting the helmet from where it must have been resting between his knees. The beskar made a quiet hiss as it settled back into place over his head, but otherwise Din had made no sound.

“I know this… hasn’t been easy,” Cara had said, wincing inwardly at the unsure way the words sounded as they came out of her mouth. She took a breath, then continued with more conviction, keeping her voice soft. “You did what needed to be done; you’ve always done everything you could for him, and he loves you for that. He’ll be safe, Din. But,” she took another breath, then said gently, “It’s okay if you’re hurt.”

“I’m fine.” 

Cara had jerked her head back towards him at that, unable to stop herself. His visor had been tilted toward her enough to see the last couple inches of the black bar that marked the edge of his visor’s viewfield, but Cara had a forbidding feeling that he wasn’t looking at her. Seconds had passed in a heavy silence as she tried to figure out what to say.

Before she could, the blast doors had opened behind them, Fennec stepping into the corridor with a carefully neutral expression on her face. “Fett’s here,” she said. “We should get down to the docking bay.”

The three, with their unconscious Imperial guest, had made their way to the belly of the light cruiser in a lingering heavy silence, and now Cara stood on the passenger deck of the Slave I, watching as Din rolled the ball back and forth between his fingers where he sat in front of her.

She couldn’t get the image out of her head of Din’s solitary form in that corridor, looking smaller and more alone than she ever could have imagined him.  
They were alone in this section of the ship, Fett sitting somewhere above them in the pilot’s cockpit, and Fennec down in the lower hold, having been instructed to stash Gideon’s unconscious body in one of the Slave’s cramped prisoner compartments. Despite the smaller size of the ship compared to the light cruiser they had just disembarked from, the passenger deck somehow felt too wide and spacious to Cara, the distance between her and Din’s somber form feeling like it would take lightyears to cross.

Cara shifted her gaze away from him, staring down at her feet for a moment as her shoulders lifted in a silent sigh. She knew she couldn’t leave the man to stew in his thoughts for too long, not after something so painful as this, but for the life of her she still hadn’t figured out the right thing to say. After all her prowess and years of experience planning missions and methods of attack for the rebellion, she now felt hopelessly powerless to help a single friend. Truthfully, she’d never been the best out of her teammates at comforting people.

Perhaps it was because the problem hit so close to home.

With another sigh, this time laced with determination, she took a step towards him, uncrossing her arms as she came to a stop in front of the motionless visor.

“Din,” she said, hoping that this time he would give a reaction, “Look, I’m not the best at this sort of thing, but I’m not letting you suffer in this alone.” She shifted her voice to a softer tone for a moment. “I know how big of a deal this is for you. That kid wormed his way into your life more than I’m willing to bet anyone else you know has.”

“I’m fine, Cara,” came Din’s response, just as hollow as the first time he had uttered it. Cara levelled him with a look, though the visor remained stubbornly fixed on the opposite wall.

“I’m serious, Djarin,” she said. “This is serious. I know what it’s like to lose someone, and at least for you he’s still alive-”

She hadn’t meant to say that. The ball in Din’s grip stilled.

“What I mean is…” Cara said after a slow intake of breath, turning her head to the side in a moment of shame. “It hurts. And the truth is that it’s going to keep hurting. But running from my feelings forever didn’t do me any good after Alderaan.” She paused, swallowing as moisture pricked at her eyes. “Look, eventually it’ll get easier, but in the meantime, the rest of us are gonna be here for you. I _promise_ it helps.”

Seconds ticked by in terse silence as Din finally moved, only to turn his head slowly away from her.

“I appreciate your concern, but it isn’t needed,” came his voice, echoing hollowly through the vocoder of his helmet.

Cara didn’t miss the way his hand tightened around the metal ball as he spoke.

The tense air was broken suddenly by the sound of boots on the ladder rungs above them, as Fett made his way down from the cockpit. The bounty hunter reached the passenger deck and turned to face them, silently regarding the two from behind the dark visor of his helmet.

“I’ve set a course for Nevarro,” came his gruff voice. He nodded his head towards Cara as he continued, “Let me know if there’s someplace you need us to stop to turn in that Imp. But if it’s a New Republic base, you’d be better off taking your own ship, ‘less we all wanna get shot at in this one.”

Cara twitched her lips at that, half her mind still focused on the other Mandalorian as she considered Fett’s comment. The Rebel insignia she had all but forgotten about felt suddenly heavier where it rested in her pocket. She still needed to devote some time to sorting out her alliances.

“Keep the course for Nevarro,” she said, “I’ve got some of my own questions for the bastard before we bring him in. But thanks for the heads up.”

Fett nodded in response, turning his attention then towards Din.

“ _Beroya_ ,” he said. “Get some rest. You haven’t slept once since setting foot on my ship three kriffing cycles ago, and don’t fool yourself into thinking that I can’t tell. It won’t do you any good to keep going in that condition.”

“No, thank you, I – “

“If you don’t get yourself down to a bunk, I’ll tranq you and drag you down there myself,” Fett interrupted in a growl. “There’s a med kit in the lower hold if you need to tend to any injuries.”

The two Mandalorians regarded each other tensely for a moment, before it became clear that Fett’s command had come out victorious in the silent battle of wills. Din sat back with a sigh before pushing himself to his feet. Despite the impressive display of refusal, Cara suspected that he had been waiting for an excuse to be alone.

“Fine,” Din said, making his way towards the hatch leading to the ship’s lower level. “Wake me before we drop out of hyperspace.”

“Understood,” Fett replied.

As she watched Din disappear down the access hatch, Cara felt a pang of worry. Although she could see how exhausted the man truly was, she knew from experience the consequences of trying to submit to sleep after an event like what Din had just gone through. She hoped for his sake that he was tired enough to get a night’s rest without the torture of relentless thoughts.

“Do you think he’ll be alright?” she asked Fett, who had also waited to watch Din’s figure leave the passenger deck. The bounty hunter gave no response for several moments, standing silently beside her with his hands clasped behind his back.

“Perhaps,” he finally said. He shifted his head slightly towards her. “He handed the child over to the Jedi?”

Cara nodded. “It was his duty,” she said. “The matriarch of his tribe tasked him with it, either to raise the kid himself or return him to his own kind. He’s been searching for a Jedi for a long time.” She looked at the floor before continuing, “But I don’t think he was ready.”

“It is just one more good thing a Jedi has taken from a Mandalorian,” Fett said, something hard and distantly mournful in his voice as he spoke. He turned to face her. “But I hope, for his sake, that this time it was for a good reason.”

______

There are skeletons piled everywhere on the ground surrounding Din. Layers and layers of beskar, empty husks shattered or broken or peeled apart ruthlessly to reveal faces that were meant to be sacred, the soft flesh of siblings by Creed unmasked for all the galaxy to see. Din could feel his haggard breath rattling in his lungs as his eyes glazed over the unfamiliar features, made recognizable only by the pieces of beskar left attached to each unmoving body. Din stumbled forward, his shaking hand reaching out agonizingly slowly, as if through mud, to grip the shell of an empty helmet, its shattered visor only crumbling further as he lifted it.

He raised his own visor to seek out the pattern of beskar that matched the helmet among the gruesome mess of bodies sweeping endlessly around him, resolutely intent on the task of reuniting the metal with the rest of its set, to attempt to give this fallen brother some semblance of a peaceful rest. Suddenly, he felt the helmet shift in his grip, and Din looked down to find the beskar collapsing into sand between his fingers.

“ _No_ ,” he choked out, grasping desperately at the sand as the helmet disintegrated. The sand tumbled to a pile at his feet, and Din stumbled back as he became aware of the bodies around him filling too with sand, the grains pouring rapidly out of every crack and crevice of beskar. Din felt panic grip him, coursing thickly through his veins in a debilitating hold.

Behind him, a presence approached, casting its shadow long and looming over the mounds of sand and deteriorating metal. A wave of ice washed over Din, locking the joints in his arms as he turned slowly to face the figure. The sight that greeted him stopped his heart in its tracks. Among the bodies of beskar stood Moff Gideon, a smug smile rising on his lips as his gaze locked with Din’s. In his arm was the child, pale and limp where he slumped in the Imperial’s possessive grip.

A tidal wave of guilt flooded over Din, and he found himself unable to move as he strained to rush forward and pull Grogu from his grasp. Gideon’s smile turned into a sneer as he loomed closer, and suddenly the air was filled with the ear-splitting crack of a lightsaber activating as –

Din lurched awake with a strangled cry, skin drenched in sweat as his heart hammered violently in his chest, each panicked breath coming out in a harsh gasp. His eyes flicked back and forth rapidly as he tried to make sense of his surroundings, the nightmare loosening its grip on him minutely with every heave of his tense shoulders. Slowly, Din slumped forward over his knees, trembling hands coming up to grasp his helmet as his breath turned shaky and shallow.

He dimly realized he was on the Slave I, in a sleeping bunk not unlike the modified storage compartment on his own ship, only slightly larger and less cramped. There was no netted hammock above him. No lightly snoring bundle of blankets, no sleepy rustling of pointed ears awakened by his father’s nightmare.

Din was alone.

The knowledge flooded over him in a surge of anguish, doubling him over as waves of heartache wracked his body. A shaky sob escaped his lips, which, once it had started, Din could not find the willpower in himself to stop. He curled in upon himself achingly in the dark, and wept.


End file.
